


Pick Me Right Up

by Mayarene Rose (Paradise_of_Mary_Jane)



Category: DCU (Comics)
Genre: Damian is angry but also secretly pleased, Fluff, Gen, also he is very smol
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-03
Updated: 2018-01-03
Packaged: 2019-02-27 19:08:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,980
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13254753
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Paradise_of_Mary_Jane/pseuds/Mayarene%20Rose
Summary: Damian is the smallest member of the family. Naturally, this leads to some interesting interactions. Damian is not at all pleased.(aka five times Damian gets picked up by his family members.)





	Pick Me Right Up

**Author's Note:**

  * For [HuiLian](https://archiveofourown.org/users/HuiLian/gifts).



> Happy Holidays! 
> 
> This was a lot of fun to write and I hope you like it :D

1.

It first happens on patrol. Damian shouldn’t have been surprised. It seemed exactly like the kind of thing Grayson would do. Except he completely was. Somehow, he is still caught off guard when Grayson picks him up by the hood and physically drags him away from a fight.

“Put me down!”

Grayson ignores him. Damian thrashes with all his might and then some but to no avail. Apparently, Grayson is unusually strong and adept at handling thrashing Robins.

Damian is unceremoniously dropped on a rooftop, far away from the fight.

“Stay here,” Grayson says. The cowl makes him sound more menacing than he is.

“I can help,” Damian insists. 

They’re trying to contain a mass breakout from Arkham and this is clearly not the time to be treating him like a child, not when Batman needs all the help he can get. He tells Grayson so. It elicits exactly no response on Grayson’s part.

“Robin, stay here,” he says again. “That’s an order.”

Damian crosses his arms over his chest and glares. 

“We’ll discuss this later,” Batman says and he’s gone. Damian debates the practicalities of following him. Grayson has Todd, Drake, and Brown’s help. Damian promised Grayson that he’d obey orders as Robin. But then again, Grayson very clearly needs his help as Robin as well. Robin helps Batman, before anything else.

It barely takes a moment to decide before he’s leaping through the rooftops, following. 

Batman needs Robin. Grayson just needs a reminder from him, obviously.

\--

Grayson says nothing about Damian’s disobedience when they get home, although there is an amused smile on his lips. It’s been on his face ever since Robin had arrived to the fight and shouted him down. The fight had halted for quite a bit.

Batman never tries to sit him out with no reason ever again.

Although picking him up by the cape… That’s another matter entirely. Grayson seems to think that while he’s not doing it with Robin, he’s definitely doing it to Damian. Mainly, when Damian thinks that there are people who need to be taught a lesson.

“Put me down.”

Grayson is holding him by the scruff of the neck, oblivious to Damian’s kicking and flailing. It’s not as if he’s going to attack someone who hasn’t insulted his father’s name.

“We’re at a party,” Grayson says. “You can’t just go around punching people.”

“But he said--”

“I know what he said. But violence is never the answer,” Grayson says.

“We go out every night to beat up criminals,” Damian says.

“Violence,” Grayson amends, “is never the answer unless we’re dressed in silly animal themed or circus costumes.”

Damian stills, crossing his arms over his chest. He glares at Grayson. Grayson does not let go of him.

“I hate you.”

“Love you too Dami.”

Grayson  _ still  _ doesn’t let go of him, and worst of all, after that, picking Damian up by the his collar becomes  _ tradition. _

 

2.

Drake is the next one to pick it up because of course he is. He almost matches Grayson’s mannerisms like… Like people who have known each other for a long time. Like brothers, a traitorous part of his mind whispers before he shuts it down completely. Damian tries not to think about that very much.

The most infuriating part is that Drake didn’t even seem to realize that he did it. Damian has learned to tolerate the way Grayson just casually picks him up during patrols, and breakfast, and while Damian is studying, or whenever Grayson feels that he needs to be affectionate. He will absolutely not tolerate it from anyone else.

Drake mimics it almost absentmindedly, during breakfast when he picks Damian up by the scruff of the neck and moves him a seat.

Damian reacts on instinct and a moment later, Drake is face down on the counter, his arm twisted behind him.

“What do you think you’re doing, Drake?” he hisses.

“Okay, okay I admit I fucked up, now would you please just let me go?”

“Do not think to touch me again!”

“It is way too early for this Damian!”

Damian doesn’t let go, although he does loosen up a little bit.

“What were you trying to attempt?”

“It was a mistake, okay?” A pause where Drake tries very hard to free himself from Damian’s grasp. To no avail, obviously. “You were in my spot and Dick used to do it to me all the time, Sometimes even Cass.” he finally fumbles.

The knowledge that Grayson apparently casually picks all of his siblings up sends a flutter of something in Damian’s stomach that he isn’t willing to acknowledge. He tightens his grip on Drake again and presses him harder to the counter.

“You are going to regret this when I get out of here,” Drake growls.

“You seem to be--”

“Do I even want to know what the two of you are doing or should I just assume that this is your way of hugging it out?”

Damian’s head whips around and Drake once again struggles under his grip.

“Dick tell the demon brat to get off me!” Drake says at the same time Damian says:

"I am teaching him to show me the proper respect.”

Dick blinks at them for a moment.

“I need more coffee,” he declares and heads over to the coffee maker. “Damian please get off Tim,” he says once he’s poured himself a cup and drank half of it in one go.

“He assaulted me!”

“Tim?”

“It was an accident!” Tim says. Then in a much quieter voice. “Remember when you used to…”

“Pick you up and--”

“Yeah.”

“Damian.” And Grayson’s voice is heavier this time, or more awake. It is however, no less amused. “Let Tim go. Now.”

Damian does, though he still glares at Drake. Drake, for his part, glares at Damian with just as much heat.

“Now is it too much to ask for you two to actually hug it out?”

Damian walks right out of the room, not even deigning to give it a response.

\--

Drake, of course, deigns to do it again because he is even more useless before he’s had his morning coffee. After the third time, Damian becomes resigned to it. He doesn’t even bother attacking Drake after the fifth. Clearly, Drake is physically just incapable of learning.

(“You know you could just sit somewhere else, right?” Grayson pointed out. “You don’t even like that spot.”

“That is not remotely the point!”

“You know I’m starting to think you actually like--”

“You know nothing, Grayson.”)

 

3.

Todd seems to be doing it on a misplaced sense of amusement. Damian tries to fight it but Todd is considerably larger than he is, and also someone who does not know when to give up.

He does it a grand total of forty-seven times (on patrol, while walking down the street,  _ during an attempted kidnapping,  _ and while he was trying to read on the manor grounds, to name a few) before Grayson advised him to just let Todd do what he wants and really what was the harm in it?

Damian did not even bother to dignify him with a response. He has a plan. It involves a sword, Batcow, and a lot of shouting. Damian finds that shouting at something for long enough generally gets him what he wants, and only an absolute monster can say no to Batcow.

He takes all those things to Todd’s apartment. 

Todd, it appears, is less than amused.

“You brought a cow. To my apartment.” It’s not often Damian sees Todd nonplussed. His plan is working out perfectly. “A cow. And now you’re shouting at me.”

“Batcow is here to help me with my negotiations,” Damian says.

“Negotiations?” Todd splutters. “I’m sorry but a  _ cow _ ?”

Damian sniffs. He draws the sword. Todd takes a step back.

“I demand that you cease this prank you have been continuously been playing on me!”

“And you brought  _ a cow  _ for that?!”

“And a sword,” Damian says proudly.

Todd buries his face in his hands in what Damian thought was acquiescence. And then Todd’s shoulders begin shaking and strange sounds begin coming from him. Damian steps closer and realizes that he’s laughing!

“Todd if you think--”

“Fine,” Todd says. “I’m not going to pick you up by the collar anymore.”

“Good.”

“Because I am never going to stop giving you shit for actually owning a cow.”

Damian grips his sword and opens his mouth in a snarl.

\--

A few hours later, with a broken collarbone for Todd and a sprained wrist for Damian, Grayson is glaring at the two of them, arms crossed over his chest.

He’s finished lecturing a few minutes earlier but his glare is still enough to keep the two of them quiet.

“Now are the two of you--”

“You’re really rocking the Bruce Wayne goldie…” Todd’s voice dies down as Grayson turns the full force of the glare towards him.

“Now,” Grayson repeats, voice dangerous enough that Damian almost wants to shrink away from it. “Are the two of you going to try and kill each other again?”

“No,” the two of them say dully.

“Good.”

“But it was all Damian’s--”

“Jason,” Grayson says, rubbing his forehead tiredly. “I really don’t want to know.”

“But the cow--”

“Especially about the cow.”

 

4.

Damian never figured out why Cain does it. All he knows is that whenever she’s in Gotham, she picks him up and into an embrace whenever she wants, even if it’s in the middle of patrol. Damian suspects that Grayson and Todd have something to do with it, but he’s too afraid to ask.

Cain, generally speaking, is not someone Damian questioned.

 

5.

The absolute worst thing that Damian has learned about his father is that he seems to be where Grayson learned his disgusting habit.

Damian learns this when they are in Father’s study preparing for yet another party that Damian simply cannot skip, when Father picks him up by the shirt until they’re eye level. Damian is so shocked he freezes.

Surely not Father. His Father is a bastion of sanity. He’d gotten used to the other people of the manor engaging in this act of madness, but surely not Father. His father would surely have more sense than…

“Nice job on the bow tie,” Father comments.

Damian opens his mouth but no sound comes out. He is absolutely stunned speechless. This cannot possibly be happening. Surely, this is some form of mind control and Father should be tested immediately and--

“And here I thought that that was our thing, B.”

Damian’s head whirls around to find Grayson standing in the doorway, arms crossed over his chest and an amused glint in his eye.

“There’s no reason I can’t do it to my other children too,” Father says, and this may be the first time Damian has heard him as amused as he is now. 

“Besides,” Father continues. “I can’t very well pick  _ you  _ up now. You’re hardly as small as Damian is.”

Damian splutters. Small?! He is tall for his age, thank you very much.

Grayson’s grin only widens and takes on a bit of mischief as he catches Damian’s eye. The expression only serves to fuel Damian’s fury.

“You can try,” Grayson says and the two of them share secret smiles like this is a normal thing. Damian’s neck is starting to hurt from whirling back and forth between the two imbeciles--

(He is still not ruling out the idea that his Father might be mind controlled because  _ absolutely nothing about this situation makes sense _ .)

Father and Grayson continue exchanging quips and this has gone on far too long, in Damian’s opinion. In Damian’s opinion, it should not have happened in the first place.

“ _ Will you please put me down!”  _  Damian roars.

As usual, nobody listens to him. Damian doesn’t even know why he tries.

**Author's Note:**

> that last bit was inspired from [this](http://preciousthingsareprecious.tumblr.com/post/168225135186/preciousthingsareprecious-whore4batfam) tumblr post which is really just too adorable for words. Many thanks to [identityconstellations](http://identityconstellations.tumblr.com) for helping me find it :D


End file.
